J.K. Rowling's Excuse For Not Turning In Her Book On Time Is So Wild Her Editor Didn't Even Believe It

Every one of us has missed a deadline or two in their life, and most people agree that that is an understandable, if unfortunate, circumstance, provided that you can offer a legitimate reason for the delay. Well, the Internet just learned that J.K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy edits were once late for an unbelievable reason — because an aardvark chewed through a power line.

If you can't bring yourself to believe this incredible story, you are not alone. Rowling told her Twitter followers that "nobody ever believes" the tale, and that even her editor "struggled" to take her excuse seriously. I can't say I blame him. I mean, when was the last time you had an aardvark obliterate your corner of the power grid?

(True story: My power once went out for a few hours because a snake crawled into a nearby transformer.)

According to Rowling, the aardvark incident happened while she was in South Africa, working on final manuscript edits for her 2012 novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy. The Harry Potter's author's Thursday evening tweet came in response to a tidbit from Quite Interesting, which related the story of how the Large Hadron Collider in Bern "was shut down after a weasel fell into it" in 2016.

Of interest to many may be the fact that Rowling rolled out her aardvark tweet just after Buzzfeed reported that some of the editorial staff of Harry Potter website and social hub Pottermore had been fired. The author has kept mum on the subject so far, but it seems unlikely that she will be able to remain silent for long. (In a statement to Buzzfeed, the company said: "As a result of a reorganization at Pottermore, there have been a small number of job losses. These reflect the evolution of the business and are being handled as sensitively as possible.")